Ich

[dgags]

Wow!!!!!! this is one thing after another.....I think my fish have ich....there are little white specs on a couple of my fish...I read a million dif views on how to treat it.....could someone tell me what would be best. I do weekly water changes and my levels are all good....its a 55g reef tank with 1 scopas tang, barbed rabbit, 2 clowns a flame angel and a cromis

 

[b0bab0ey]

I treat with a product called Cupramine for one solid month. Cupramine is a copper-based medication, so you won't be able to use it in your reef as it will kill your corals/inverts. I suggest you specifically use Cupramine, and not some other copper-based medication, because it's safer to use on Dwarf Angels - like your Flame.

You'll need to remove ALL of your fish to a separate QT and treat them in there. You'll also need to leave your reef tank fishless for at least 2 months to ensure all the Ich parasites in there are gone for good. I know.... Like you said, it's always something.

There are other treatment methods and they are described here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1992196

 

[MrTuskfish]

IMO & IME: there are only three cures for ich. Copper, (I also prefer Cupramine), hypo-salinity, or quinine sulfate. i have never seen an iota of real scientific evidence or expert opinion that confirms anything else works. Of course, if you QT all new fish, you'll never have to worry about it.

 

[NirvanaFan]

IMO & IME: there are only three cures for ich. Copper, (I also prefer Cupramine), hypo-salinity, or quinine sulfate. i have never seen an iota of real scientific evidence or expert opinion that confirms anything else works. Of course, if you QT all new fish, you'll never have to worry about it.

The tank transfer method can work too. And you don't just have to quarantine your fish. You have to quarantine rock, sand, corals, inverts, and everything else you put in your tank.

 

[dgags]

I guess i should of thought of that before I set up....I dont have a QT.....and I do have 3 dif coral so I dont know how long it will take to get another tank.....how long before my fish really get bad? Is there anything else I can do while everything is in my tank? dose my QT have to have the same set up with a sump skimmer and pumps? pretty expensive to do antother tank

 

[Phishguy]

Talking about ich in these forums always ends in more confusion and frustration. There are several things to consider. Are all the fish eating well? If they are all eating well, you should be slightly less concerned. The problem with removing them to a qt once they have it is that they usually die from the added stress. I have qt'd before and still ended up with ich. I have found, ime, treating with a very reduced amount of herbtana for a week or so really helps them get through the outbreak. Keep in mind, this doesn't eliminate it from the tank, it just helps them heal and encourage a healthy immune system for them to fight it off. More of a band-aid but it does tend to work. My plan is to do a solid quarantine when I upgrade to my new tank. Good luck and let us know what you do and how it works

 

[MrTuskfish]

The tank transfer method can work too. And you don't just have to quarantine your fish. You have to quarantine rock, sand, corals, inverts, and everything else you put in your tank.

All true. Just getting hobbyists to QT fish is hard enough; but its just the beginning. QT EVERYTHING>

 

[MrTuskfish]

I guess i should of thought of that before I set up....I dont have a QT.....and I do have 3 dif coral so I dont know how long it will take to get another tank.....how long before my fish really get bad? Is there anything else I can do while everything is in my tank? dose my QT have to have the same set up with a sump skimmer and pumps? pretty expensive to do antother tank

A Qt doesn't have to be expensive. Try Craigs list. All you need is a tank, heater, HOB filter, and a few PVC scraps. Less than the cost of one moderately priced fish.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

More info on treating ich - http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1990809

 

[Chris27]

Common myths regarding Cryptocaryon Irritans, aka Marine Ich:

1. Garlic cures it - Not true, it's used to entice fish to eat, and at best an immune booster.

2. The white spots are gone, it's cured - Not true, the parasite has just moved off the fish temporarily, as it's part of the lifecycle.

3. Moving a fish to QT stresses it and it dies - Not true, stress doesn't kill a fish, leaving it susceptible to a parasite that compromises the gills does. If moving a fish to a new tank was a sure fire killer, then the trip from the ocean to our tank wouldn't be possible.

4. Clean water and a good diet cure Crypt - Not true, a good diet and clean water simply make the fish healthy enough to fend off a parasite at times, but it will eventually succumb to it at some point.

5. Certain Stains of Crypt are Immune to Copper - It's possible...maybe...but the truth of it is that most times folks have it reappear after a treatment means that they didn't do it properly. To short a treatment interval, improper copper levels, and improper QT are surefire ways for copper to fail.

 

[jcw]

Another thought is that not all white spots are ich.

 

[b0bab0ey]

I guess i should of thought of that before I set up....I dont have a QT.....and I do have 3 dif coral so I dont know how long it will take to get another tank.....how long before my fish really get bad? Is there anything else I can do while everything is in my tank? dose my QT have to have the same set up with a sump skimmer and pumps? pretty expensive to do antother tank

There's always the possibility that your fishes' immune systems might be able to fight it off on their own. But I still wouldn't just sit tight, and wait and see what happens. You can ensure your water quality is good by doing small, frequent WCs. Who knows, maybe you'll suck out some of the Ich parasites while you're at it. Also, feed your fish lots of nutritious foods (nori, mysis shrimp, spirulina - i.e. not just flake) to help bolster their immune systems. Soaking the food in garlic may not help, but I can't see how it hurts either.

Like others have pointed out, setting up a QT doesn't have to be anything fancy or expensive. With the fish you mentioned, a 20 or 30g QT with a heater & HOB power filter should get the job done. Just make sure to siphon the fish poop off the bottom daily to prevent any ammonia build-up. Or add a sponge filter and clean the sponge daily to help with the poop. Still gotta do WCs though... Just maybe not as often.

P.S. Whatever you do, don't accidentally swallow any your aquarium water while sucking on the siphon hose during the WCs. You'll wake up the next morning with little white dots all over you! :bounce3:

 

[MrTuskfish]

Another thought is that not all white spots are ich.

Yeah, IMO, ich is often mis-diagnosed......and that is probably a big reason for the myths Chris posted right above you.

 

[dgags]

alot of great advice! they are all acting and eating great....i was thinking mabe i am looking to hard at these spots....the light has to hit it just right to see it....but i am looking at every spot I see and think it is ich.....i am going to act on it just incase but I hope you are right in saying mabe there is a chance it is not ich......I saw that turning the water temp to 80-82 will help kill off the ich.....I wish it were that ez....is this also a myth

 

[dgags]

is the herbtana ok to use with the coral???????

 

[b0bab0ey]

No experience w/herbtana here but check out these threads:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2001711&highlight=herbtana

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1934257&highlight=herbtana

 

[Phishguy]

I've used herbtana. I have done the recommended treatment with bad results. I had an outbreak of dinos after that treatment. Don't know if it caused it, but it happened. After talking to a lfs friend, they use it in very small amounts and I tried it that way with very good results.

I have a 120g w/ 40g sump. If I start to see signs, I dose one to two cap fulls for a few days and it clears up. I know it doesn't "cure" ich but it seems to help them fight off the parasite. I do not turn my skimmer off while treating this way but it does foam like crazy so I set up a container to drain into.

As for corals, it is perfectly safe to use. They will recede for the first day or two of treatment but they will come around.

 

[sjwitt]

I too have used Herbtana in my 185 g mixed reef (with anemone) tank. And, did so in a diluted form and it worked well. Spots gone by next day and only one treatment. At first dose the corals did 'bubble up' and recede but after a couple of hours came back just fine, anemone closed up but after a couple of hours also fine. Now at the first sign of any spot on any fish, I give one dose and everything goes away.

One thing that I found 'interesting' is that when I dose Herbtana it looks like small white spots release into the water column ... don't know exactly what that is but it clears up after a few hours. I also continue to run the protein skimmer (and yes, foams like crazy so watch it).

 

[sponger0]

Ok I just had an ich breakout. I had two clowns that got infected and you be the judge. I used ich attack and herbtana together. It did reduce the ich population I could see on my fish but I had a bad outbreak so I had to use it for quite a few weeks. But finally I also had a cleaner shrimp and a bunch of snails to help with a algae breakout.

Well my snails kept dying and shrimp died. I stopped using it and now I see no ich as of right now. And the fish all look healthy. But i did have some casualities. No corals died. I would just dose at night to have the least affect on them.

IMO next time I would quarantine. I have a tank running now for it with Cupramine on standby.

 

[sponger0]

Also my PH dropped which was mostly likely due to the ich attack but I think that what also killed my inverts. My PH i was able to get back to normal in about a day after I stopped dosing.